Poor Company
by LuxaLucifer
Summary: Secrets were poor company, even for buildings. Written from the perspective of the Shrieking Shack.


Written for the finals round of the QLFC. Had to be from a place's point of view. :)

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There was little joy in their life.

They had been built for a dark purpose. A noble purpose, perhaps, but they were not the ones who were to be noble. They were the tool the noble used. Tools have no emotions, they'd learned.

Other buildings like them were built new and made old by time, by the pitter patter of little feet and the grown ones running around taking care of them. Places like them were supposed to go through wear and tear with their owners, not be built to be a ruin.

But they were. And they hated it.

When they tried to be kind, no one noticed. Worse, sometimes- the people thought they were trying to scare, to bring fear into the hearts of those around. Nothing could be further from the truth. They been born to look far crueler than they were.

Then there was the wolf boy.

He cried when they brought him the first time. He cried many times. Then he would turn into a wolf, and he would scream. He screamed many times. The pain was there either way.

They wanted to help him. They couldn't help him. He hated them, they knew it. They were the place that trapped them, wolf or boy. They were the ones that kept the wolf from being free, so it scratched and bit and yowled.

They still wanted to help.

Why did the wizards know that everything they touched became magic, but failed to notice how it also made them alive?

They watched the wolf boy grew. First he was by himself, crying. Then he didn't seem so sad before the change. The wolf still screamed. The wolf always screamed. They did their best to creak and moan, so no one would get suspicious. The white wizard had taught him that with his spells, wand moving in intricate patterns that only made sense to them.

Then things changed. They were not the only ones with the wolf boy. Other animals came in the night. At first they stayed with him, calmed him. The wolf's screams were soft.

Then the animals began to leave the shack, and they began to have secrets. They knew things, things many buildings didn't. The only one that knew more was the Big Building, the one the wolf boy and the others came from. That was a Magical building with a capital M, unlike the way they were. Jealously boiled under their surface, and some of their groans and shrieks became a little more real.

Then there was a new secret to be learned, but they didn't like it much at all. The wolf boy was turning when another child from the Magical building intruded, and then there was chaos. No one was injured, and yet everyone was sad. The wolf boy was crying again. This was a secret they didn't like knowing.

There came a time when the wolf boy no longer time. They did not know what to do. The white wizard never came to tell them how they should act, so they changed nothing. They moaned with the wind the same way they always had, every floorboard creaking. They made life difficult for the local teens who snuck in, their only contact with the wizards who'd created them.

Time passed. Time enough that they'd have begun to wear down if they hadn't been built this way. They were lonely, if a building could be lonely. They'd heard the wolf boy use that word to describe the feeling of wanting company, of wanting it so badly you could yell, and they thought it was fitting.

Many years later, a third secret big secret was handed to them. The wolf boy, now a wolf man, returned. Seeing him was a jolt to their foundations, their body creaking and groaning without a whisper of wind. With him was one of his friends, now grown. He was wrong though, something was deeply wrong. His skin was pale, his hair dark and tangled and long. They thought the friend might have been sick, but they knew little of such things.

A third came. They recognized him from the night the wolf boy had begun to cry again. He had been saved by another friend, who was nowhere in sight. They wondered where he was.

There were children here. There was fighting. The little rat, a familiar sight, was turned back into a man. He was even more wrong than the pale friend was. Something was off in his soul

Soon enough, they were gone like they had never been there, and they were alone again. Secrets kept poor company.

The wolf man came back, though. By himself this time. It seemed he was leaving, his trunks all packed.

"We've been through a lot, haven't we?" said the man. As there was no one else there, they realized the wolf man was addressing them.

They creaked in response. It was all they had been taught to do.

"Thank you," he said, sighing. "For the protection you've given me."

He left then, but it was enough. They had been recognized, spoken to, allowed to live for that one brief moment of time. It was a kindness that Remus, the wolf man, would never understand, but one they would always be grateful for.

They were not done with being useful. In a few years, a snake man and his servants came to the shack. There, the boy who had once been saved here became a man who died there. Some secrets were terrible, they learned, and would have been better off not existing.

They had served their original purpose, and yet they stood. The white wizard was dead. They had outlasted him. They would outlast many to come.


End file.
